Eight killed in two localities near Colombia-Venezuela border

Last Updated on Tuesday, 11 November 2014, 21:52 by GxMedia

Caracas, Nov 11 (EFE).- Eight men, including five Colombians, have been murdered in two Venezuelan towns bordering Colombia for reasons not yet known, the Colombian ambassador to Venezuela, Luis Eladio Perez has said.

The killings apparently occurred Sunday.

Five of the victims were identified as Colombians, while the other three were in the process of identification, Perez told Efe on Monday, without providing further details.

The Venezuelan newspaper La Verdad on Sunday was the first to report the murder of the eight men executed in two different incidents in the state of Zulia, in western Venezuela.

According to the newspaper, the six men were shot to death and their bodies were found in an area known as Caño Motilon.

The same source also added that two other men, killed with knives, were found in the village of Mata de Coco, also in the state of Zulia.

So far, no Venezuelan authority has provided information on the murders.

Last March, in a similar incident at the Colombia-Venezuela border, five Colombians were shot by unknown assailants in the Venezuelan town of Ureña in Tachira.

Venezuela shares with Colombia a border of more than 2,200 kilometers (1,367 miles) in which different organizations linked to smuggling, drug trafficking, guerrilla groups, paramilitaries and kidnappers operate.